Wethington's mother, Charlotte, pushedfor change because she felt there were very few tools for family members to help adult addicts who were spiraling out of control.

Parents, she said, are desperate to intervene to help their children. "Most parents do not want to see their children incarcerated in order for them to get help for a disease," Wethington said.

However, Wethington is perplexed by one important way Ohio's law differs from the one passed in Kentucky. Ohio's law requires family members to sign an up-front agreement that they will pay the total bill for treatment and give the court adeposit for half of the amount.

Mills said that the court has gotten many inquiries but that the conversation often ends once the costs, often thousands of dollars, are explained. In the Cuyahoga County case, the woman's family had to deposit $8,000 with the court and agree to pay the total cost of treatment, which could be double that or more.

"While we have problems with this, we don't chastise the intent to try and help someone who needs help," Denihan said. "But this is for those that have money. The question we have is what about those who don't have money? How is this fair and equitable?"

Wethington said that the Kentucky law placesthe responsibility for setting up and covering costs of drug and alcohol assessments and treatment on the person asking the court to intervene. But they are not obligated to pay up front and can use insurance or find afree treatment program.

Another debate is giving acourt the authority to force a person to get treatment they may not want, which could be challenged as a civil rights violation.

Historically, laws have existed to involuntarily commit to hospitals people with mental illness who are seen as a danger to themselves or others.

Courts and professionals must determine that the danger is pressing.

Up to 38 states have some type of law that allows an addict to be temporarily detained, according to a study presented in 2011 to theAmerican Psychiatric Association.

In some states police can pick up an addict for a short period of time, others allow for a few days of involuntary hospitalization. In some instances, like Ohio, states allow for longer -- sometimes months -- of involuntary commitment to treatment.

State laws also contain a hodgepodge of standards for an addict to be committed, including danger to oneself, grave disability and failure to manage personal affairs.

In Ohio, a probate judge or magistrate is supposed to decide whether a person is a danger, with the opinion of a doctor or treatment professional, when possible.

Denihan, whose agency is required to provide the probate court with a list of local agencies that have agreed to treat people committed by the court, said the law also runs counter to a central tenet of addiction recovery -- that it be voluntary.

"Locking up and forcing people to be treated is challenging," he said, noting that most treatment facilities are not secure. "They have to want to be there."

Wethingtondisagrees.

Doctors and treatment providers told her after her son overdosed that he needed to "want" to get better and that he needed to "hit rock bottom" first.

"While we were waiting for that, Casey died," she said. "For him, the ultimate bottom was death. I don't want more people dying from addiction."

Addiction, Wethington said, is a disease like others, except that the response to it is partially shaped by the notion that addicts are somehow more responsible for their disease.

"Would you be told you shouldn't help or advocate if your child had cancer or diabetes?" she asked. "The goal is to save peoples lives. That is the goal with any disease. But we have to keep people alive for them to recover."

Someargue that a person's judgment and decision-making ability can be so clouded by addiction that forcing them at least to detoxify, may help them make a decision to get help.

Jessica Berg, Case Western Reserve law and bioethics professor, said that addiction can damage families and finances. But she is curious how "danger" will be interpreted and whether addicts will have the right to argue against the claims of their family members that they are unable to make their own decisions. A great many addicts function for years or decades with their disease, she said.

Traditionally, he said, involuntary commitments are reserved for very serious situations and are given narrow time frames because our society values freedom to make decisions -- and to be held accountable for them, good or bad.

"It is stepping down a slippery slope," he said.

Read the entire law in the DocumentCloud viewer below, including the sections on Probate Court in pages 7-9 and 87-91.

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